ThinkSustany®

Sustany® Foundation President David Reed and Sustainable Buzz Co-Chair Sarah Marshall pose for The Pew Charitable Trusts Every Picture Counts campaign. The goal of the campaign is to bring awareness to the waste of Atlantic bluefin tuna.

Atlantic bluefin tuna are incredible fish. They grow to 10 feet long, weigh up to 1,500 pounds, and live as many as 40 years. However, bluefin are depleted, and surface longline fishing takes a large part of the blame. This wasteful fishing method uses lines that extend up to 40 miles with hundreds of baited hooks intended to catch commercially valuable species such as yellowfin tuna and swordfish.

Surface longlines unintentionally kill hundreds of tons of bluefin annually as well as more than 80 other species of nontarget ocean wildlife, including blue marlin, sharks, and sea turtles. Bluefin mortality is of particular concern in the Gulf, which is the only known spawning ground for the western Atlantic population of this species.

THE GOOD NEWS…NOAA Fisheries is seeking public support for a new rule that could help stop the waste of Atlantic bluefin tuna and other nontarget species. This rule will encourage a transition to more-selective fishing methods and set a firm annual limit on bluefin mortality in the surface longline fishery.